Non-intercommuting Cosmic Strings
Abstract
We perform the numerical field evolution for the collision of two Abelian type I cosmic strings. We present evidence that, for collisions at small but characteristic relative velocities and angles, these cosmic strings do not exchange ends and separate. Rather, local higher winding number bound states are formed close to the collision point, which promote multiple local scatterings at right angles and prevent intercommutation from happening. This constitutes the simplest example of the breakdown of the intercommutation rule, usually assumed in the construction of effective models for cosmic string network evolution.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-ph/9612350,
title = {Non-intercommuting Cosmic Strings},
author = {Luis M. A. Bettencourt and Pablo Laguna and Richard A. Matzner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/9612350},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Reference to URL with Animations corrected. To appear in Physical Review Letters. 4 pages, 2 figures, RevTeX, available through anonymous ftp from ftp://euclid.tp.ph.ic.ac.uk/papers or on WWW at http://euclid.tp.ph.ic.ac.uk/Papers